First Access responds to lawsuit over the death of Lil Peep

Management firm First Access Entertainment filed papers with the
Californian courts just before Christmas formally responding to the
lawsuit being pursued against it by the mother of late rapper Lil Peep.

While “vehemently” denying many of the specific allegations
made by Lil Peep’s mother, the management firm says that, even if those
allegations were true, she wouldn’t have any case against First Access
because of the nature of its contractual relationship with the rapper.

Lil Peep, real name Gustav Åhr, died in November 2017 of an accidental drugs overdose, aged 21. In her lawsuit last October,
Åhr’s mother Liza Womack accused First Access and its associates of
negligence and other breaches of contract that contributed to her son’s
death.

She said that the management firm “allowed, normalised, and
even encouraged and promoted” drug taking on her son’s tours, despite
being aware of his addiction issues. And, when Åhr told his management
team that touring was making him ill, “defendants ignored these cries
for help and instead pushed decedent onto stage after stage in city
after city, plying and propping decedent up with illegal drugs and
unprescribed controlled substances all along the way”.

While First Access denies many of the specific allegations
contained in Womack’s lawsuit, its legal filing last month focused more
on matters of law than matters of fact.

Womack’s claim that First Access and its associates are liable
for the ‘tort’ of negligence fails, First Access argues, “because Mr
Åhr’s relationship with them was a business relationship governed by a
contract that barred tort claims, and because these defendants did not
owe an independent duty of care to Mr Åhr, breach such a duty, or cause
his death”. It then adds that “the complaint’s contract claims likewise
fail as a matter of law”.

The legal filing explains in some detail the nature of Åhr’s
business partnership with First Access, before providing a long list of
reasons why the management firm believes Womack’s case fails to prove
either negligence or breach of contract, let alone a link between its
conduct and Åhr’s death.

Legal reps for Womack have already responded, insisting that
First Access’s relationship with Åhr was much closer than the management
firm claims, and that it had control over his personal as well as
professional life.

It remains to be seen how the court now responds to each sides’
arguments. Womack’s lawsuit has always seemed ambitious in its attempt
to hold Åhr’s management team somehow liable for his death.

However, issues raised in the litigation feed into the wider debate about the responsibility – legally and ethically – of the music industry, and especially artist management teams, when it comes to safeguarding the health and wellbeing of the artists they work with.